and of course, in iraq, that was the problem year after year. and so with the lessons of what has occurred in afghanistan and iraq, there is -- i think and david knows more about this -- a great pause in the administration. let's see if we can avoid military action almost at any cost. >> david and bob, in that order, there's obviously a lot of reluctance on the part of the u.s. military to get involved in this there. we've seen reporting on this for the last few months where the pentagon's war gamed this out and thinks it's a very problematic scenario. so the question seems to me, at least in the immediate future, is what is the likelihood that either of you think that israel would go ahead and do this alone in the near term, meaning between now and election day? >> you know, john, that's just guessing. i mean, it's something under 50% in my mind. it's something above 20%, and where precisely that would be, i don't know. i think -- i mean, i hear netanyahu looking for a way to get sufficient u.s. assurance that he can climb down from the positio